Subete ga F ni Naru

One of the most interesting anime out there. The complexity and deep lore are remarkable, touching on mature subjects like the nature of humanity, how the brain works, and the meaning of life and death. This anime is truly seinen—made for adults with a personality that enjoys thinking, analyzing, and searching for meaning.

I really liked the character Saikawa, and Magata was written with near perfection. Maybe it’s because I’m into this kind of work, but I genuinely enjoyed it. Even the soundtrack stood out—it was so good that it helped me focus even more on the story. The anime, The Perfect Insider, really lives up ... to its name.

The only thing I wished for was a slower or darker opening/ending to better fit the overall atmosphere. And if someone rates it poorly, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad anime—it just might not be their favorite genre, or they didn’t fully understand it. People often fear or dismiss what doesn’t make sense to them.

After passing it over at least half a dozen times while deciding which anime to watch, my wife and I finally gave The Perfect Insider a go and if nothing else it was certainly unique and didn't feel overly like any other anime we've seen. At just 11 episodes it's a fast, approachable program, though it somehow manages to feel like it doesn't truly even have enough content to fill that very short run time, and it certainly loses steam towards the end as well, leaving us with an overall mixed bag that I'll now discuss with a bit more detail.

From the very beginning the ... program treads the fine line of delving into philosophical territory and staying focused on the matter at hand. It repeatedly asks questions along the lines of "What is the meaning of true freedom?" and "What does it mean to be alive?", which isn't my cup of tea to begin with, but for most of the show it sprinkles this in just enough to where it isn't obnoxious. Towards the end, however, it starts laying it on a little thicker. Between the push towards the philosophical and the "multiple personalities" plot point, I suppose the anime this reminds me the most of, though they're still largely different entities, is The Garden of Sinners.

The core of the show, and the part that will keep the viewer engaged, is the murder mystery we're trying to solve. How satisfying a mystery program is really lives and dies by how good or not good its resolution is and in this case I'd say it's mediocre. This plot in its entirety relies on the all too common and all too convenient anime trope in which there is a character who is not only a genius, but in fact so, so, so much smarter than everyone else that they're able to meticulously plan things out years in advance, make zero mistakes in doing so, execute them perfectly and have no one around them catch on to any of it. The events of the show are technically possible, but they really, really stretch plausibility to the max.

While the viewer MAY be able to solve the "Who is the culprit?" part of the mystery, it's basically impossible to solve the code presented early on in the show. No one watching this is going to figure out what "Everything becomes F" means without looking it up. It gets into hexadecimals and is super esoteric and thus feels cheap in that we're presented with a mystery that we cannot realistically solve. I found the answer to this to be more of an eye roll than anything else because there was no chance in hell, even if I were given five years to do nothing but sit there and think about it, I'd be able to come up with the correct answer and I feel quite safe in assuming the same would be true for damn near every single other viewer.

Presentation wise, they nailed it. The anime looks good, sounds good and while this was never dubbed, the subtitles I watched on the blu ray release were seemingly perfect. I didn't notice a single mistake! My wife really liked both the opening and ending songs as well.

The overall pacing is fine. It's only 11 episodes so it's not going to have long stretches of nothingness, but we do still see a few flashback scenes repeatedly and they start to get old and the last episode in particular is a total snoozefest. The "real ending" is in episode 10. The 11th and final episode almost feels unnecessary, but it certainly isn't exciting at all one way or another. I am confident they could have cut this down to 10 episodes with a few small edits, really reinforcing that there isn't a whole lot of meat on the bone, even if what is there is reasonably good.

Overall I enjoyed The Perfect Insider enough to not regret watching it, though I definitely liked the first half more than the second, and there's little reason to ever watch this a second time once you know the resolution. At just 11 episodes it's a short enough ride to easily be binged in a day or two, so it wouldn't be a huge waste of anyone's time if you were to give it a go and ultimately didn't like it. Worth one watch? Maybe. Something you'd be "missing out" on if you passed over it? Nope. Do with what as you please.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-7.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-7.5

Murder mystery case drowned under meaningless ramblings, stuffed with characters that have no motivations.
The story is completely nonsensical since the beginning, hence the logic and common sense were taken away from the characters to divert the attention from the case. Couldn't they at least inspect the corpse of the victim?

"Philosophical" monologues, self-praises for the thrice in a generation geniuses, eureka moments coming from hints never shown, and garbage romance drama... This is just bad.

I can't care less about the controversy over immoral/illicit actions or scenes that reviewers usually praise as brave or condemn as disgusting, because it's a fictional story like everything else.